The Marching Season

guest cottage at Cannon Point. On the table was a white enamel basin filled with water. Next to the basin was a cloth and a small shaving mirror. There was a peephole in the door so they could watch him.
    Michael inspected his face in the mirror. His eyes were bruised and nearly swollen shut. There was a deep cut in the soft tissue above his left eye that needed stitches. His lips were puffy and split, and there was a large abrasion across his right cheek. His hair was matted with blood. There was a reason they had given him a mirror. The IRA had studied the art of interrogation well; they wanted him to feel weak, inferior, and ugly. The British and the RUC Special Branch had used those same techniques on the IRA for three decades.
    Michael carefully removed his coat and pulled up the sleeves of his sweater. He soaked the cloth in the warm water and went to work on his face, gently wiping away blood from his eyes, his mouth, and his nose. He leaned his head over the basin and washed the blood from his hair. He carefully ran a comb through his hair and looked at the mirror again. His features were still hideously distorted, but he had managed to remove most of the blood.
    A fist hammered on the door.
    The Marching Season 167
    "Put the hood back on," the voice said.
    Michael remained still.
    "I said put the fucking hood on."
    "It's covered with blood," Michael said. "I want a clean one."
    He heard footsteps outside the door and angry shouts in Gaelic. A few seconds later the door burst open and a man wearing a balaclava strode into the room. He grabbed the bloody hood and pulled it roughly over Michael's head.
    "The next time I tell you to put the hood on, you put the fucking thing on," he said. "You understand me?"
    Michael said nothing. The door closed, and he was alone again. They had imposed their will on him, but he had won a small victory. They left him sitting that way, wearing a hood that stank of his own blood, for twenty minutes. He could hear voices in the house, and somewhere a long way off he thought he heard a scream. Finally, he heard the door open and close again. A man had entered the room. Michael could hear him breathing and he could smell him: cigarettes, hair tonic, a breath of a woman's cologne that reminded him of Sarah. The man settled into the remaining chair. He must have been a large man, because the chair crackled beneath his weight.
    "You can remove the hood now, Mr. Osbourne."
    The voice was confident and naturally rich in timbre, a leader's voice. Michael removed the hood, placed it on the table, and looked directly into the eyes of the person seated across the table. He was a man of blunt edges—a broad flat forehead, heavy cheekbones, the flattened nose of a pugilist. The cleft in his square chin looked as though it had been chipped away with a hatchet. He wore a white dress shirt and tie, charcoal-gray trousers, and a matching waistcoat. The bright blue eyes burned with light and intelligence. For some reason he was smiling.
    Michael recognized the face from Cynthia Martin's files at
    168 Daniel Silva
    Headquarters: a prison photograph from the Maze, where the man had spent several years in the eighties.
    "Jesus Christ! I told my men to give you a wee hiding, but it looks as though they gave you a real pasting instead. Sorry, but sometimes the lads get a little carried away."
    Michael said nothing.
    "Your name is Michael Osbourne, and you work for the Central Intelligence Agency in Langley, Virginia. Several years ago you recruited an agent inside the Irish Republican Army named Kevin Maguire. You ran Maguire in a joint operation with MI5. When you returned to Virginia you handed Maguire to another case officer, a man named Buchanan. Don't bother to deny any of this, Mr. Osbourne. We don't have the time, and I mean you no harm."
    Michael said nothing. The man was right; he could deny everything, say it was all a mistake, but it would only prolong his captivity, and it might lead to another beating.
    "Do you know who I am, Mr. Osbourne?"
    Michael nodded.
    "Humor me," he said, lighting two cigarettes, keeping one for himself and handing one to Michael. After a moment a pall of smoke hung between them.
    "Your name is Seamus Devlin."
    "Do you know what I do?"
    "You're the head of IRA Intelligence."
    There was a sharp knock at the door and a few murmured words in Gaelic.
    Devlin said, "Turn around and face the wall."
    The door opened, and Michael heard someone enter the room and place an